Jaipur: Yet another period film has run into a controversy over alleged distortion of facts and defamation of a historical figure.
Led by its political leaders cutting across party lines, the politically-influential Jat community in Rajasthan is enraged over what it deems is poor depiction of Maharaja Surajmal of Bharatpur — considered the founder of the first Jat kingdom in India — in Ashutosh Gowarikar’s film Panipat that released Friday.
Among the first to object to the film was Rajasthan minister Vishvendra Singh, who is a descendant of the king.
“It is sad that a great person like Maharaja Surajmal has been wrongly depicted in the film Panipat,” he said in a statement. “I believe that considering the huge anger in the Jat community in Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, the film should be banned, else the law and order situation can be affected.
“Before releasing movies based on a historical figure, permission should be sought from his family,” he added.
His statement was followed by a tweet in which he said he was set to participate in a protest against the film at Bharatpur Monday. “I have left Jaipur, will join you all in the protest in Bharatpur at 1 PM,” he tweeted.
भरतपुर के लिए, जयपुर से निकल चुका हूँ | दोपहर 1 बजे भरतपुर में आप सभी के साथ विरोध प्रदर्शन में शामिल होऊंगा | #boycottpanipat
— Vishvendra Singh Bharatpur (@vishvendrabtp) December 9, 2019
Former chief minister Vasundhara Raje, who is married into the Jat royal family of Dholpur, also slammed the film.
“It is quite condemnable that a self-respecting patriot and revered person like Maharaja Surajmal has been portrayed in a wrong way,” she tweeted.
स्वाभिमानी,निष्ठावान और हृदय सम्राट महाराजा सूरज मल का फ़िल्म निर्माता द्वारा फ़िल्म पानीपत में किया गया ग़लत चित्रण निदंनीय है।#MaharajaSurajmal #Panipat
— Vasundhara Raje (@VasundharaBJP) December 8, 2019
Hanuman Benwal, the Lok Sabha MP from Nagaur, the hotbed of Jat politics in Rajasthan, has urged the censor board to clip the “objectionable scenes in which Maharaja Surajmal has been shown in poor light”.
He added that he has requested censor board, the movie’s producers and Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar to look into the matter to avoid a law and order problem.
“No film can distort history, Maharaja Surajmal was a great ruler and warrior,” he said.
Also read: Panipat review: Almost another lavishly mounted caricature of Muslim invaders as brutes
‘A maharaja portrayed in poor light’
The film is the tale of the Third Battle of Panipat fought in 1761 between the Marathas and Afghan King Ahmad Shah Abdali.
The Jat community has alleged that Maharaja Surajmal has been depicted as being greedy in that he is shown demanding a fort in Agra from the Peshwa general Sadashivrao Bhau in return for helping the Marathas against the Afghan king.
According to Vishvendra Singh, this is factually incorrect.
“I belong to the 14th generation of Maharaja Surajmal. The truth is that when a wounded Peshwa and Marathas were returning after being defeated and wounded, they were given shelter for six months in Bharatpur by Maharaja Surajmal and Maharani Kishori,” he said. “In fact, Khanderao Holker died in Kumher, the then capital of Bharatpur and there is even his cenotaph at Gagarsoli village.”
The Jat community is also upset because Maharaja Surajmal has been shown speaking Rajasthani and Haryanvi whereas people in these parts speak Brij.
The maharaja is revered by the Jat community. Former external affairs minister Natwar Singh, who is distantly related to the Bharatpur royal family, has written on his life.
According to Singh’s book, Maharaja Surajmal (1707-1763) established and expanded his kingdom of Bharatpur right up to Haryana and Agra in a short span of time.
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Period dramas in trouble over ‘distortion’
Of late, a number of Bollywood period dramas have run into trouble for offending certain communities.
Last year, there was a huge ruckus over Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Padmavat, starring Shahid Kapoor, Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone.
Several Rajput outfits, particularly the Karni Sena and the erstwhile royal families of Udaipur, Jaipur and Jodhpur, had staged violent protests against the film forcing several state governments, including those of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh to ban the film.
Even during the making of the film, director Sanjay Leela Bhansali was assaulted and the film’s sets vandalised.
Then Kangana Ranaut’s Manikarnika, based on the life of Rani Lakhshmibai, faced protests from a Brahmin outfit. The protesters had alleged that the film had shown that the queen was romantically involved with a British officer Robert Ellis.
The film-makers later compromised with the Sarv Brahmin Mahasabha that was leading the protest by providing a written assurance that there was no romantic scene between the queen and the British officer.
Such protests, however, have not been free of controversy themselves.
During the Padmavat protests, a TV news channel conducted a sting on Sukhdev Singh Gogamedi, the president of the Shree Rashtriya Rajput Karni Sena, and showed him promising to create trouble against a film for a fee in order to create a hype around it.
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